


Eudaimonia

by subobscura



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Healing, Making empowered decisions, Recovery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subobscura/pseuds/subobscura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a life in which you have very little physical autonomy, sometimes finding a small square of happiness is the best victory you can hope for. Shattered by the revelations he discovered during the fall of the Syndicate, Mulder works on acceptance, living with grace while caught in an unspeakably tragic web of lies, exploitation, and deceit, and the compromises he has to make in order to find a measure of peace and security. Set post-Agua Mala, this story directly addresses events in Two Fathers/One Son, and will span at least the half year between those events and when Mulder goes back to work post-Hungry. Each chapter will be a self-contained story. This also exists in the same continuum as my previous story, Rough Road Ahead. While not necessary to understand this story, reading that will certainly add a great deal of nuance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eudaimonia

Mulder was exactly where she expected to find him, which in itself was sort of novel, because he loved defying her expectations just for the hell of it. Or he did, before an alien artifact had sent his brain activity into the stratosphere, and he'd had unplanned neurosurgery of a somewhat unspecified nature.

She was still getting to know the new man who came out the other side of those experiences and told her with great sincerity things like "you're my constant, my touchstone." The same man who three or four years ago claimed to be allergic to personal conversations and cheerfully denied the existence of an interior emotional life. Which were both lies of course, but lies to which he clung as tenaciously as his equally fervent demands for the truth from everyone else.

We're taking more cases in L.A. from now on, Scully thought. Or at least California. Even the budget motels they stayed at usually had a well-maintained pool. Mulder was stretched out on a chaise, wearing Ray-Bans, black swim trunks, and nothing else. His skin was a dark smooth expanse of honey gold. He'd spent a great deal of his two month convalescence reading poolside at her complex's rooftop pool, or sunning himself stark naked in the puddles and splashes of light that gathered in her condo in the afternoons.

When she asked him about it, he said he'd spent too much of his life in the dark. Coming home from work had started to become exquisite torture. All the naked Mulder she could ask for, and no sex because his temporary anti-seizure prescription had left him totally unable to get it up. He'd smirked at her impatience and offered to help her out, but she just banished him to the bedroom to put some goddamn clothes on and threw herself into yet another cold shower. "We'll get back to it together when your body is ready," she'd said to him and he'd looked at her again with that naked adoration he didn't bother to hide from anyone anymore. Their partnership was like this, the ebb and flow of relearning each other after each traumatic event eroded and changed their interior landscapes the way hurricanes rearranged coastal geography with casual violence.

With his sunglasses on, she couldn't tell if he was asleep, but she thought not. This had turned into a fantastically shitty end to a case, and changed or not, Mulder wouldn't nap after having to shoot someone. He wasn't wired to be okay with it and never would be.

She had a new bikini on Mulder had never seen before, jewel blue with a top that did fantastic things for her size B cleavage. Dana Scully of seven years ago would have been appalled at the lack of decorum on a case. Dana Scully now didn't give a shit about decorum, which amused and pleased Mulder endlessly.

She set the six pack of pretentious West Coast microbrew next to the chaise with a glassy clink, and then slipped off her sandals and her linen shift coverup from the Côte D'Ivoire. Sitting on the edge of Mulder's chaise, she leaned over and pulled down his sunglasses to the end of his nose so she could see his eyes. "Keys," she demanded with the barest hint of a smile. Smiling back, he lifted his pelvis and dug his keys out of the left-hand pocket of his trunks.

"Ah," he said, holding them away from her grasp. "Pay the toll." She rolled her eyes, but leaned in to kiss him. She'd intended to give him a friendly peck, but his lower lip was sweet with the taste of orange juice and she chased that sweetness into his mouth, exploring his tongue and lips and teeth with hers for long sticky moments. He purred with a contented rumble in his chest as she pulled away and sighed, "I think you just broke a few hearts over there, Scully."

Looking across the way, she saw a couple twenty something girls pouting now that they'd realized Mulder was spoken for. At least one would still make a play for him. They always did. Forty this year, and Mulder was still getting phone numbers on his coffee cups from baristas and tucked into his pockets at bars.

She cracked open two beers with his Swiss Army Knife and handed one to him. The other she held over his chest and dripped cold condensate on first one nipple and then the other, watching as they tightened and pebbled. He shivered a little but didn't complain. "They can look but they can't touch," she murmured low and throaty, just for his ears. "Your beautiful body belongs to me," she said, running a possessive hand over his toned abs, slicked with a light sweat from laying out in the sun. He shivered again, and she was pleased to see him harden to half mast in his trunks.

"Ma'am yes ma'am," he said, groaning and clinking his bottle to hers in a silent toast, before tipping his head back to take a long drink. God almighty, with his five o'clock shadow, her partner looked like sex personified, instead of the highly analytical and intensely serious law enforcement officer she worked with for a living.

"Scoot over," she said, rubbing a circle high up on his thigh. He shifted to make room on the cushion, and she propped herself on her left side facing him, tangling her legs with his when he turned towards her. She wiggled down a bit to trace over his nipple again with the cold glass of the beer bottle, before dipping her head and drawing the tiny bud between her lips for a nip which she then soothed with a suck and a lave of her tongue. "Now you're just rubbing salt in their wounds," he groaned, his hips making one small involuntary thrust.

"No'm not," she breathed hotly into his neck before licking and sucking a kiss into his pulse point. Occupied as she was, she couldn't see Mulder's disbelieving stare, but she could feel it. "Okay, maybe a tiny bit," she admitted, nibbling the fascinating intersection of skin between his jaw and his neck. Pulling back up, she swallowed down half her beer before putting it down between their bodies, cool and wet against their bellies. "Mostly I just like to make your body sing the way it was meant to be played," she whispered against his raspy chin, cupping her hand over the hard warmth of his erection, out of sight of prying eyes. "Intellectually I knew what you were hiding under those suits for so long, but nothing makes up for first-hand practical experience."

"Jesus please us," he half laughed, half moaned, resting his forehead against hers. "If I'd known you were such a fucking wet dream beneath yours, I think I might have done some things a little differently." She squeezed him gently one more time before releasing him and moving her hand up to hold his hip. She got a kick from displaying his gorgeous body and showing him how beautiful and desireable he truly was, but she was careful never to let that shift into exploitation. He'd shed so many layers of anger and self-loathing since she'd met him. She never wanted to be responsible for him retreating back into his protective shell and numbing isolation. They'd move the rest of this party indoors when the time was right.

He relaxed back down into the chaise, and rested his head on his bent arm. "We'll have to wait a few minutes so I don't embarrass myself walking out of here with a huge woody," he grumbled good naturedly. "Thanks for winding me up, baby."

That was new, too. In their off hours, he was just as likely to call her a pet name or Dana as he was Scully. It was weird, but good. She hadn't tried Fox yet but once, and wasn't sure she would. Maybe tonight, just to see how they liked it. Lots of things were changing, so why not one more?

"Oh hush," she smiled, giving his ass a friendly smack. "This from the man who loves five hours of foreplay."

"Busted," he laughed, grinning a little shyly with a rosy flush breaking out high on his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

Her heart constricted painfully in her chest. She'd known this amazing person was hiding under all that protective armor, but she'd never thought she'd see it. She'd been worried he would never be able to break through all his anger and fear and pain. But something had changed after Antarctica. She still wasn't sure what had triggered Mulder's decision, but when they were in town, he had standing appointments late Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She never asked and he never volunteered, but she knew Mulder had finally sought out therapy after everything that had happened to him was starting to grind him into emotional dust.  
He'd relaxed a little, background checks allowing them a stable schedule, and lots of time for goofing off. Their friendship blossomed in a way it hadn't since the very early days of their partnership. Then, like the proverbial hurricane Mulder was when he'd crashed into her life seven years ago, everything rearranged itself again, this time due to a literal storm...  
After procuring drier accomodations at the end of that miserable non-case with the hurricane and the sea monster, they stood in one of their hotel rooms together looking like drowned rats. In Scully's case, a frizzy drowned rat with raccoon eyes and streaks of mascara like goth tears running down her face.

"Sea monsters? Really," she asked, arching both eyebrows at him.

"I swear to you," he laughed, "these things find me. I thought Arthur was three sheets to the wind, but I owed him one since he let me borrow his couch for a month during my divorce. I can sing you some sea shanties," he asked hopefully.

"Mulder," she sighed. "I'm a Navy brat. I've forgotten more sea shanties than you've ever known." Letting her mouth curve in a secret smile, she closed her eyes and took a preparatory breath. Opening them again, she grinned widely and sang, "Friggin in the riggin, friggin in the riggin, friggin in the riggin oh, 'cause there's nothin' else to do."

"Scully," he breathed, awed. "That's fantastically filthy, and now you really have to marry me." Watching each other, they'd started howling at the absolute absurdity of the whole situation, and then they were young and innocent again laughing in a cemetery in the rain. She stepped up to him and pulled him still laughing into a kiss. He stilled, and she held his face ever so gently in her hands. "Please will you come to bed with me," she asked, talking so low it was almost a whisper. His eyes were shining, green gold in the light. "I love you more than words can ever possibly convey. And now I want you to let me make love to you. But only if you want it. Only if you're ready."

Biting his lower lip, he stepped away and stripped off his tee-shirt, damp in patches from the rain. Still watching her, he dropped his shaking hands to his belt and unbuckled, then unbuttoned and unzipped. He peeled out of his jeans after toeing off his shoes and socks, and stood before her in just a wet pair of boxer briefs. He wasn't hard yet, exhausted and full of nerves, but that was okay.

"You're beautiful," she said honestly, stepping up to him to press her hands against the cool damp skin over his obliques. "It's just me," she soothed, feeling the fine tremors that had overtaken him.

He rolled his eyes. "Sure, shot up and a pelt so full of scars I look like a road map. Not to mention these goddamn horribly itchy stings." It was true. Mulder's body showed every minute of a difficult, physically demanding almost fifteen-year career as a field agent. She pressed a gentle kiss over the faded bullet wound she had given him, closing her eyes in satisfaction at finally getting to comfort this long-healed hurt.

"I love your scars," she soothed, looking up into his eyes. "Every last one. They mean you're strong. That you're fierce. That you fought hard and survived. You have nothing to be ashamed of." He kissed her, tangling his fingers in her damp hair, tasting like salt and rain.

She stepped away, stripping out of her own clothes deliberately, keeping her steady gaze on Mulder the whole time. She didn't stop until she stood before him, naked and unashamed. "Look," she said, smiling in a melancholy kind of way and pressing two fingers over her own gunshot wound. "His and hers. I think the next step is china patterns and monogrammed bathroom towels."

"Scully," he sighed, going soft and warm around the edges. So predictable, she smiled to herself. Mulder might be a prickly cynical hardass to the rest of the world, but she knew his secret. He was all marshmallow underneath, and she was going to eat him right up. He shed his underwear, and stepped right into her personal space. He pressed his big warm hand over the tiny red circle now silvering at the edges. He bent and kissed her, just a quick hard press of his lips against her own. "It's really soon, isn't it? Are you ready? What do the doctors say? God, I'm an asshole dragging you around in hurricanes, when you're only a month back from rehab."

"Mulder, stop," she smiled, pressing two fingers to his lips. He silenced instantly, which was interesting in itself. "I'm healthy. I've been cleared for unrestricted field duty. I just delivered a baby while fending off a tentacle monster." She arched a coy eyebrow at him. "I know you're probably an animal in bed, but I think I can take it."

"Oh," he laughed, pressing his full naked length against her own. The bright mid morning sun was finally heating the room, and their bodies were warm all along the length they touched. He gasped and then they both moaned in unison. He leaned down to whisper honey-rough, "what led you to that conclusion, Agent Scully?" He wrapped his hands low around the back of her hips, fingers fanned out over her ass. He pulled her tighter against himself, grinding his now hard cock into her belly.

He wrapped one arm around her, then twisted and tossed her giggling onto the bed in a casual demonstration of his lean wiry strength. He slid next to her with feline grace, and without any for-warning latched onto her breast, sucking hard and pulling her nipple deep into his mouth. "Oooooooh," she groaned, her eyes rolling back into her head. "There's your strength," she gasped as wet sticky warmth flooded her and started to slick her inner thighs. "Not an ounce of fat on you, Mr. 'I do five hundred crunches a day and run marathons for fun.'" She slid her hand down his pleasantly defined bicep, then back around to grab an ass cheek off of which you could bounce a quarter.

He pulled off with a loud suck. "I knew it," he grinned like the smartass he was. "You just want me for my body."

"Did I say you could stop," she pouted, running her nails through his hair before pushing his head back down to her other nipple, which he took into his mouth still laughing at her audacity. "Mmmm," she hummed, "your sense of fair play." He slid back up and tipped her head back so he could suck kisses along her collarbone and up the tendons of her neck while she scratched her nails lightly over his broad muscular shoulders.  
"Your oral fixation," she breathed against his lips before kissing him, pushing her tongue into his mouth against and over his, rhythmically so that she was fucking him with it. Recognizing the pattern, he groaned in helpless need before smoothing his palm up her inner thigh. He separated her labia with such sweet care and gentleness before pushing in two of his long pianists' fingers up to the hilt. She shuddered and gasped as he pulled them back out with firm upward pressure. "Oh God, your fearless curiosity and...," she broke off panting, a sexual flush starting to pink her skin.

"And," he asked with his eyebrows raised, chuckling darkly into another kiss. "Please continue your report, Agent Scully," he murmured, pressing his thumb in firm circles around her clit, causing her inner thighs to quake with need and another gush of wetness to coat his fingers. "Jesus, Dana, you're soaking through the bedspread. That's unbelievably hot," he moaned.

Scully arched her back off the bed with a high whimper that segued into, "and your un-fucking-believable complete and total competence at absolutely everything you do, you bastard." She spread her knees as wide as they'd go, needing needing needing.

"Language," he chided, with a twinkle in his eye. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Because you can definitely kiss." He paused to demonstrate. "Or suck," he whispered pulling her nipple back into its new favorite home. Releasing it with a pop, he pushed in a third finger, "or fuck me any time with that pretty little mouth of yours. In fact," he emphasized that with a firm thrust, "I expect we'll be doing a lot of that from now on."

Writhing with ecstasy, she reached down to grab the long length of his cock, weeping seminal fluid already. His whole body shuddered, but he didn't miss a beat. "Please," she whispered. "Please I need you."

"What do you need from me," he asked, tucking a lock of her sweaty hair behind her ear, infinitely gentle and infinitely demanding.

"Mulder, please," she cried, a tear slipping loose and sliding back along her temple to her hair.

"Say it, Scully," he crooned, slowing his hand and thumb to a stop, pulling forth an agonized wail from her. "Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you," he whispered, licking another tear off her temple.

"Please, please, fuck me Mulder, please, I need you inside, please don't stop baby, please, need your cock..." Who was this wanton sexual creature Mulder had turned her into, begging for his cock in a long stream of helpless babble? New rule for new recruits, she thought dazedly. Always fuck the profiler. Mulder laughed heartily, thrusting a fourth finger in and spreading his fingers, carefully opening her up for his huge dick. Shit, she thought. Must have said that out loud.

"Yeah, ya did," Mulder smirked, finally taking pity on her, pulling his fingers out and climbing between her thighs. The emptiness was too intense, and she started begging again mixed with dire threats and curses that would make a Marine blush. "Alright, honey," he said soothingly, lining his cock up with her entrance and pushing in one long smooth stroke until he bottomed out, his hips pressing hard into hers. Too much, too much everything she thought, her internal muscles were fluttering around his thick hot length, and she saw white hot supernovas behind her eyes, and she wailed his name, weeping with the pleasure.

She came back to herself some indeterminate time later, still crucified with pleasure while he fucked her through some long strange rolling orgasm that seemed to wash through her with every even thrust of his hips. Seeing her mostly aware, he gave her a heart-stopping melting smile, and leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose. "Wow," he chuckled, eyes bright green with delight. "I admit to some highly unethical sexual psychoanalysis of my partner, but even so, you sure are great for a guy's ego." He was still languidly pumping like he had all the time in the world, not even tired, the bastard.

"Mulder, you cheat," she fumed, wrapping her legs high around his torso and scratching her nails down his back a little harder than was necessary.

"Like you expected anything else," he scoffed. "Besides, you didn't seem to mind when you were screaming harder, harder, fuck me harder, ohmigodMulder!" She blushed at his falsetto impression, which seemed kind of ridiculous given that she still had little orgasmic shocks sparking through her with every thrust of his hips.

"God you're as insufferable in bed as you are out of it," she grumbled, moaning as he hitched her pelvis to a new angle that was making her see stars. She leaned up to lick that lucsious lower lip, before pulling it into her mouth to suck on it. "Good thing I love you so much," she smiled. She grabbed his ass in both of her hands, and nuzzled his nose with hers. "You are my profiler, singular, nobody else's, okay? You want to sexually psychoanalyze someone from now on, you'll just have to content yourself with previously explored territory. Got it?" He nodded, his eyes shining. "Now it seems to me we have an unresolved issue in our current case, Agent Mulder." She squeezed down around his hugely erect penis, evoking a rumble from deep in his chest. She pulled him down to kiss and lick at his lovely mole before asking, "what do you need, love?"

"Are you getting sore yet," he asked, ever the solicitous high-born gentleman with the gutter mouth. She shook her head. "Then just like this," he said with a soft smile. "At least for the first few times, I need to be on top and I need to see your lovely face," he whispered, his eyes flickering dark for a second with remembered grief. "That okay?"

Her heart broke a little that he even needed to ask. But then she remembered he hadn't been asked, and his sexual boundaries were always probably going to be shaky and nebulous. "Mulder," she sighed, and swallowed around a lump in her throat, carding her hand through his sex-messy hair. "Fox. We will never do something you're uncomfortable with, ever. All I want for you is whatever will give you the most pleasure and for sex to be something that you can enjoy again. If we need to do plain vanilla missionary for the rest of our lives, that's what we'll do."

He swallowed hard and looked down, fighting for control. He squeezed his eyes shut, a few tears escaping to drip off his chin and onto Scully's breast. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "It's just that no one's ever asked me what *I* wanted," he said with a shaky smile.

"I know," she said quietly. "And I'd shoot every last one of those fuckers if I could and hide their bodies so well they'd *never* be found."

"I'd let you," he confessed, resting his forehead on hers for a moment. Taking a deep breath, he sat up and pulled and repositioned her legs so they hooked over his shoulders, then leaned forward to bend her in half. She groaned long and low with the increase of his already deep penetration. "Hang on for the ride, darlin'," he said, smiling broadly at the glorious torture he was inflicting on her.

"You are so lucky I do yoga, Mulder. This is, oh my God, not everyone can do this." He hmmmed an agreement into her cleavage, and started a new rythm with short quick intense thrusts. She made a kind of animal noise, and thrashed her head back on the pillow. "Oh," she moaned, arching her back. "I can feel you in my throat."

"How are you feeling about one more big one," he gritted out, sweating and starting to pant as his orgasm approached. He slipped a hand between them to finger her clit again, this time a little lighter since she was already overstimulated.

Gasping with each thrust, she yelped, "all signs point to yes."

"Well it's going to need to be in the next ten seconds baby, because I'm so, so, so..." She shuddered around him, cutting him off, throwing her head back with one long scream. Melting, her whole being was melting from the inside out, and then she was soft liquid molten metal. Her contractions set off his climax, his hips stuttering before he scooped his arms around her, holding her tightly and shattering in her trembling arms. She forced her eyes to stay open, to watch him shake in silent tortured ecstasy, like some ethereal Rennaissance saint. The last thing she saw was his expression clearing to the most beautiful carefree smile she'd ever seen from him, before she tumbled headlong into a post-orgasmic blackout.

Consciousness filtered back in soft slow increments. The drip drip drip of water from the faucet, the opening and closing of doors up and down the hall, the hot slant of the sun across the bed. The profound physical repletion of her body and the slow steady sussuration of Mulder's breathing, who was curled naked and warm next to her with his head resting on her belly.

She'd passed out so hard she'd missed Mulder slipping out of her, untucking the covers and rolling them both in, before apparently passing out himself. She could feel his semen still leaking out of her, and they both reeked of sweat and sex. Not a terrible feeling at all.

She kept still, trying to determine if he was awake or asleep. Without being able to explain it, she sensed the ticking over of the infinite gears and wheels and pulleys of his steampunk brain. "Faker," she rasped, smoothing her hand down the elegant damp expanse of his back. "You broke me."

He smiled without opening his eyes and pressed a kiss into her belly. "But I'm betting it was a lot of fun being broken. Besides," he continued, gently cupping her breast and rolling her nipple between his thumb and index finger. "You're of hearty Irish sailing stock. I have every confidence in your ability to make a full recovery."

Blinking her bleary eyes, she judged the angle of the sun. "I think we missed our flight." Rolling her head to the nightstand, she checked the clock. "Oh yeah. By I think a new record margin."

He shrugged indolently, like a giant cat. "There's always tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Whenever," he yawned. "Preferably when I'm not totally fucked out, and still only running on three hours of sleep." He smirked. "A man can only take so much."

She reached down to scratch her nails on his scalp, starting a slow circular petting motion that elicited a contented throaty grunt. "I'm still pissed at you, you know. Broadly speaking," she said, her voice still hoarse from screaming.

He slid out from under her hands and rolled to his belly next to her, resting his head on his folded bent arms. "That's fair," he sighed, "since I'm still really pissed at myself. I embarrassed both of us in front of our friends and aired dirty laundry that should have been kept private between the two of us. I accused you of making it personal when you were only doing what I've always asked you to do. Tell me the truth, point out facts and inconsistencies, poke holes in my poor sacred cows." He lowered his gaze in shame. "I was the one making it personal all along." He stared into the middle distance, his eyes filled with grief and regret and a thousand other nameless painful things.

"I know you decided to go with Diana, Mulder." She sucked in a painful breath. "To be with her. Even if it was only for five minutes, I need to know why."

"Your damned woman's intuition," he said with an unhappy twist of his mouth. "There's no reason it should be that accurate, and yet it is."

"Not all of us are psychic, Spooky," she groused, "pulling insane accurate shit right out of thin air. Some of us have to work to develop our hunches."

"No, no," he groaned, dropping his face into his arms. "Not you, too," he growled, smothering his face in the sheets. Pushing his face back up and resting his chin on his forearms, he singsonged, "say it with me, Scully, not psychic, just observant." She stared at him, unimpressed, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"Okay, fine," he huffed, irritated. "*Maybe* a little psychic." His jaw clenched.

"Ha," she crowed, ebullient. "Hand me my cell phone." He reached and snagged it off the nightstand, then tossed it between her breasts, jiggling them.

"Thanks," she said with a disapproving pucker. She immediately flipped it open and started tapping out a message, with that slow laborious method Mulder always called inefficient and stupid.

"What the hell are you doing," he asked, totally perplexed.

"Frohickie now owes me a significant sum of money," she smirked.

"You *bet* Frohike that I'm psychic," he asked, scowling. The edges of his mouth were fighting a grin, though, so Scully knew she wasn't in too much trouble.

"Yep," she smiled, popping the 'p.' "And now I win. God I love being right."

"I won't testify. I'll deny everything," he snarked. "And anyway, who the hell are you and what have you done with my partner?" He started running his hands over her ribs and sliding them down her hips.

"Stop, stop," she giggled still madly typing on her phone. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Checking to make sure you're not a pod person, 'cause you sure ain't Doctor Dana Scully." He moved to sit up and behind Scully, pulling her ass tight against his groin and resting his chin on her shoulder.

"There. Done," she sighed, tossing her phone back on the nightstand with a clatter. She relaxed back into his chest, crossing her arms over his and grasping his hands with hers. "Mulder, I play the scientist and the skeptic, because that's what you need me to be, much as it frustrates you. But we both know, we've both seen things that are not explainable by science as we currently understand it." She squeezed his hands a little tighter. "I've seen you understand things, *know* things that it just wasn't possible for you to know, no matter what convoluted explanation you try to give."

"I've been afraid to explore it too closely," he admitted.

"That's rich coming from you of all people," she laughed.

"Hear me out," he sighed, kissing the part of her hair. "My brain is already a complete freak of nature. True eidetic memory has /never/ been proven to exist. Except that I'm cursed to remember absolutely everything- sight, sound, smell, all my conversations, everything I read. I can pick up an instrument sight unseen and be playing Bach sonatas by dinnertime. It's weird, Scully. Even I am freaked out by it. I don't want there to be anything else amazing or unnatural about my brain. It already scares the crap out of me."

"Mulder," she crooned, dismayed. She had no idea this fear was lurking under his skin. His fierce intellect had always been his one source of unshakeable confidence. She twisted and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Everything about our life together terrifies me, but the one thing I'm sure of is you."

"So you don't think they should be running me through mazes and scanning my brain," he joked.

"I think you've been experimented upon enough," she said quietly. "You deserve whatever small peace and privacy you can find."

"Yeah," he agreed, hoarse. "About Diana," his voice hitched. "I wanted to believe...no, I *needed* to believe there was some small part of my life that was just mine. That not all of my choices have been dictated to me my entire life. I needed there to be space for something good and pure, something I chose for myself." He tightened his arm around Scully's waist and rasped his chin on the soft skin of her shoulder. "And it was good with Diana, it *was.* Not always, not at the end, but enough that I've never doubted our love or her sincerity. I thought we were young Bureau blueflamers who made a hasty decision, and jumped into something neither of us was prepared for or truly ready to commit to. And then when you showed me all that incontrovertible evidence of her complicity, something in me died." He scrubbed his face with one hand, wiping away his tears.

"I don't know what's real and what's fake, looking back," he whispered. "Was my marriage to Diana real? Or was it an assignment? Was *I* an assignment? Even now, I want that answer to be no. But logically, you don't earn a plumb European gig without having proven you're up to the task." His breaths beneath her back were even and controlled, timed the way she recognized when he was fighting through a panic attack.  
The heartbreak might kill them both, Scully thought. She didn't want to live in a world with such abominations as the ones that had been visited on this man. Who at his core was the kindest, most generous, compassionate person she'd ever met. Those virtues had saved him and preserved his soul in the process, but at what cost?

"Even if I ever get the chance to ask her," he said, dull and flat, "how could I ever believe anything she said, regardless of the answer? And what was she doing? Her specialty is in test-subject monitoring and reporting. Were they testing me even then?" He brought up his hand to hold over his mouth. Scully thought it was because he knew if he started screaming, he might never stop. "The violation inherent in that is...god, it's unimaginable," he croaked. He stopped talking for a few minutes, and Scully could feel his tears slide down her back as he fought for control.  
"Listen to me," he said thickly, breaking the silence. "I sound like a paranoid schizophrenic. But the problem is that there's nothing we can imagine, no matter how evil, that we know hasn't already been done. Christ, Scully, what cruelty could compel someone to use a marriage as an experimental trial, their spouse as a lab rat?" The naked despair in Mulder's voice brought tears to her own eyes, spilling down her cheeks. He sucked in a painful breath of air. "I thought Diana saved me from Phoebe's poison, and it turns out she was infinitely, profoundly worse."

"I'm sorry, Mulder," Scully choked. "I'm so, so goddamn sorry. I wish there'd been a way to show you the truth without hurting you so badly." She held his shaking hands in hers, twining her fingers with his. Small and large. Light and dark.

"It's not your fault," he sighed, damp and watery. "We're both victims of this silent holocaust. After realizing the full depth and magnitude of her betrayal, it seemed absolutely pointless, all the sacrifice and blood and pain. I wanted so much, so so much to give up. I can't say even now there isn't a part of me that's just looking for the escape hatch. But I think we both know there's only one way out of this game, for both of us." He turned her gently, shifting and moving their bodies so they were laying facing each other, holding hands again in between their nakedness.

"I'm beginning to realize that I'm enslaved to this conspiracy. Literally a slave to agendas and forces that I don't understand, and will never be able to control. That nothing in my life solely belongs to me, right down to my physical body. And I'll never, ever be free." He tried to smile through his tears, but it all came out as a sob. "I'm really struggling with that right now," he said softly. All Scully could do was press herself against him, hold him tightly in mute horror while he cried. She couldn't honestly tell him otherwise. Not given what she knew. The only thing she could give him was herself so that he knew he wasn't alone.

When he had quieted, she whispered, "where does that leave us?"

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a gentle pass of his fingers, watching her with red-rimmed eyes. "Right where we've always been, I guess. You called me to your side at the Potomac yard, and I came to you. I called you to come on this all-expenses paid field trip to crazy town, and you came with me, right into the dark heart of a storm. That's something. That's a place to start."

He rolled to his back, raising up his knees so his feet were flat on the bed, crossing his arms behind his head. "I know I've broken our trust," he said meditatively. "That it's my fault that we've gotten to a place where our relationship is so incredibly damaged." He turned his head to look her in the eyes. "But you had to earn my trust when you walked through my door, six and a half years ago now. God, did I know you were trouble with a capital T the moment I laid eyes on you," he smiled. Scully curved her enigmatic smile right back at him. "I'm hoping you'll extend me the time and opportunity to earn back your trust." He laughed. "Hell, one of these years we might even be on the same page at the same time. I still believe in extreme possibilities."

Scully rolled onto his chest, pressing her breasts into the skin over his ribs. "You're right," she murmured, kissing him sweetly. "It'll take time. Possibly a long time, I don't really know," she shrugged. She cupped his handsome jaw. "It's miraculous to me that you're even willing to try, that your faith in me is such that you can even make the effort after everything you've been through." She pressed a thumb lightly over his beautiful wicked mouth. "How you're not institutionalized or living in some remote Tibetan monastery is the true X-File."

He huffed a laugh at her gallows humor, but his eyes were bleak. "Don't think I haven't considered it." He wrapped his arms low around her waist and splayed his hands over her back. "It would be a pointless gesture," he sighed.

"What do you mean," Scully asked, dread building low in her belly. He closed his eyes briefly, his long lashes fanning over his cheeks.

He looked away towards the window, a few tears again sliding down his face, but silent, almost holy. As if there was so much pain in his soul, it brimmed over without his conscious acknowledgement. "While we've been on leave, I had myself scanned. I hadn't thought to do it before, because I've never been abducted in the traditional understanding of the idea. At least not that I'm aware." He swallowed. "I had to know."

"No, please," Scully whispered, dropping her face to his chest. "I can't take anymore," she moaned, pressing openmouthed kisses over his heart.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he groaned, crushing her to him and shaking with the force of trying to restrain more tears. "But you have to know, you just have to," he gasped, pain wrought in every line of his body. "I found three implants."  
"No! No," she howled, wild in her grief. Would it never end? No, she realized. It never would. Not for them. "I never wanted this for you. Not you. Never, ever you." She pounded her fists into his chest, wanting to rage at the tragic unfairness of it all.

"Shhhh, shhhh, I know, honey," he gasped, rocking her and clinging to her in his shock and fear. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry." All they could do was hold each other and shake, lost in the dark and endless storm their life together had become.

"Where are they," she breathed into his neck sometime later, when they both calmed enough to speak again.

"One in my nasal cavity. Like Ray Soames and Billy Miles. One in my left upper molar, disguised in a filling. And one in my abdomen, hidden in a previously existing shrapnel wound. From a case before I met you. I got clipped at the fringes of an IED blast during a raid on a compound of antigovernment extremists in Utah involved in heavy weapons trafficking." He recited this matter-of-factly, as if they were standing in front his projector and he were reading from a case file. Oddly, it helped.

"Like Duane Barry," she murmured. He nodded.

"Exactly like."

"Is there any indication of how long they've been there," she asked, trying to determine the timeline.

"No," he sighed. "And for obvious reasons, there's no way to remove them for further study. I'd have thought they'd show up in my films or scans somewhere along the way. But we know that films can be faked or switched, so..."

"Fifteen or thirty or thirty-eight, there's really no way to narrow it down," she finished his thought.

"Exactly. I was in the hospital a lot as a kid, Scully. My dad beat the shit out of me on the regular, and it could have been then."

"I remember seeing your medical file, early in our partnership. Very early. It must have been when you were shot, during the Luther Lee Boggs fiasco." She closed her eyes, remembering. "It's not too much of an exaggeration to say it seemed like every bone in your body had been broken at least once, there were that many old breaks. Some of them only known to be associated with child abuse." She turned his face towards hers, and carded her hand through his hair. "I wanted to talk to you about it. And murder your parents in cold blood. But I knew you'd never have told me on your own, and that you'd shut down on me."

"You're right," he said, curving his hand around her wrist. "That territory was absolutely out of the question back then. I had a lot of that kind of thing at that age. I did realize eventually that you must have figured it out. Enough of our cases involve child abuse, and one of the reasons I like you is Dana Scully ain't no dummy," he smiled gently at her. "I was still so grateful for your discretion and your respect for my privacy. It just made me love you even more than I already did." Scully closed her eyes. She'd needed to hear that in his own words and not under the influence.

He huffed a breath. "At any rate, there's no way to know when I acquired my spiffy hardware or from whom I acquired it. But running away isn't an option for me any more than it is for you. They'd be able to find me no matter where I go." She kissed him once, then again, and another because she'd never get tired of kissing him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'd make you leave tomorrow if I thought it would keep you safe."

"I know," he replied. "I'm sorry, too." There didn't seem to be anything more to add to that. "You said earlier that it was miraculous that I'm willing to try again at all. I've been thinking a lot about that recently." He stroked her hair, letting the individual strands slip through his fingers. "And I've decided that if I'm compelled to share my body with people and beings that I despise, and I'll never have a say in where or when that might happen...then during the times I can control, I want to give my body and my love to the people who need that from me." Fierce and strong, so strong her partner was. Even in total defeat, he carried himself with grace and generosity and dignity. "That's the only victory possible for me, Scully. And if I quit now, they win." She kissed him deeply, breathlessly, moaning love words into his needy mouth. Sharing air. Sharing life.

"I don't know what the future holds for us, Mulder. It's terrifying to even contemplate. But I do know one thing," she breathed against his lips.

"What's that," he moaned as her hand found his newly awakened erection, stroking him to fuller hardness.

"There's still nowhere else I'd rather be than standing right next to you."

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is a response to Two Fathers/One Son. After watching those episodes, I was filled with pathos for Mulder, having discovered that his entire life up to that point had been a lie. His look of shattered grief in the final scene was so heartbreaking, I had to write about it. Revisiting these episodes after so many years, I feel that Mulder's actions as concerns Diana have been almost completely misconstrued by fandom, and this is an attempt to rectify that. I've made some themes a little more explicit than were delved into onscreen, but pretty much everything in this story does have some textual justification in the canon events we're shown as the audience. I'd be happy to discuss this in further detail if anyone is interested.
> 
> As far as inspirations go, I've particularly been thinking about Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave while writing this, though neither are directly referenced. As for music, I've been listening to Thank U by Alannis Morisette, and lots of Florence and the Machine.
> 
> Finally, while this is as accurate a representation of what I think was going on in Mulder's head at this point in his life, this is also very much a story about my own struggles with getting a chronic illness diagnosis and having to learn to accede to constant casual medical invasion by people I don't know and who don't care about me as a person. Like all art, it works on more than one level, and I think it does so quite nicely in this case.


End file.
